Atheism/Curiosity and Faith

Question"Hi Margaret , It has been a long time. What do you think about these statements? Science is a search for certainty in an unsure world. Faith is what empowers curiosity. It assures you of a depth to reality we can never completely plumb. It is the precondition for truly exploring the unknown. Faith assures me of the intelligibility of reality and says look as deeply and extensively as you like, you never need worry things will really be absurd or ultimately meaningless. Even scientists MUST make a kind of pre-faith leap in order to do science; they must ASSUME that reality is ultimately intelligible and that human beings are capable of knowing the truth. They cannot proceed without such an act of 'faith.’"

AnswerHi Charles,

It is funny, people use the word faith in various, often conflicting, ways. I like the part of your statement "faith...assures you of a depth to reality we can never completely plumb." But a later part " faith assures me of the intelligibility of reality" seems to contradict the earlier part. Traditional science does assume that reality is ultimately intelligible, and that human beings are capable of knowing the truth. But...the way I understand quantum science (I admit I do not fully understand it)it seems to open up a depth to reality that we do NOT fully understand. And - the way I would use the word faith makes the need to know less important. I see faith kind of like trust, and tolerance of the unknown, and appreciation of the mysteries in life. It may empower a curiosity, but offers no assurance that the answers will ever be known.

Expertise

I am especially interested in helping people who may be in the throes of doubting their present belief stance - whether they are currently religious or atheist. I believe I can also lend perspective to those seeking to understand their own movement away from faith or that of someone close to them.

Experience

Despite a Catholic upbringing, I consciously discarded that religion over thirty years ago. However, in the last eighteen years I have been extensively researching the topic of belief versus non-belief and have discovered correlations among the experts that, seen together, lend a very intriguing perspective to this topic. My book related to this topic was published in October, 2012 by Quest Books: Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind.

OrganizationsSociety for the Scientific Study of Religion, Washington Area Secular Humanists (and many others unrelated to this topic.)

Publicationswww.mpjauthor.com
Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind.(Quest Books, October, 2012.)
http://www.exploring-spiritual-development.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-placentra-johnston/

Education/CredentialsResearched and wrote a book on this topic: Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind.(Quest Books, October, 2012.)